<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>All We've Seen by vix_spes</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27209023">All We've Seen</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/vix_spes/pseuds/vix_spes'>vix_spes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, M/M, Sordid Saovine, Storytelling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:47:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,974</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27209023</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/vix_spes/pseuds/vix_spes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A night by the fireside after a contract has Eskel despairing and in need of comfort from his lover.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Sordid Saovine - The Witcher Halloween Event</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All We've Seen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p>Despite their name, it wasn’t usual for the School of the Wolf to hunt together. They used to. Back when the schools still existed properly and were more than just a handful of Wolves or Cats or Vipers. Their first year on the Path, Geralt and Eskel had known some of the older wolves who had travelled together. By the time that Lambert trod the Path, the wolves of Kaer Morhen were solitary creatures for the most part, hunting alone. Each of them had an area that they tended to frequent albeit not exclusively. Sometimes they would come across each other by chance in a tavern or by the roadside. Other times, it was a contract that was big enough to necessitate more than one Witcher.</p>
<p>One contract such as this.</p>
<p>Royal Wyverns. A nest of them.</p>
<p>Geralt had hesitated before he accepted it, mostly because he had Ciri and Jaskier in tow. Any other time, had he been by himself, he wouldn’t have hesitated. However, this year they were both due to winter at Kaer Morhen and thus were with him, not safe in Oxenfurt or wherever Yennefer had made camp. Logically, he knew that neither of them were totally incapable of protecting themselves – the School of the Wolf had trained Ciri themselves and Jaskier had some training for all his tendencies to forget said training and put himself in danger ‘for the sake of art’ or whatever horseshit excuse he used. Still, hesitation or not, a contract like this meant money – probably good money – and so he had accepted it.</p>
<p>In the end, he needn’t have worried. What Geralt had hoped would be two Witchers turned out to be four because Lambert had arrived and where Lambert went, so did his Cat. Geralt didn’t really mind Aiden – he wasn’t too bad for a Cat, but he was still a Cat and whatever they put into their mutagens made them all a little bit crazy. At least Eskel was there, which always settled Geralt that bit more, knowing that Eskel was there to have his back as he had done since they were trainees.</p>
<p>Four of them meant safety in numbers.</p>
<p>At least that was the plan. They had had a plan. There might have been four of them, but they would have been crazy to not have a plan when they were dealing with a nest of Royal Wyverns. They gathered as much information as they could from the Alderman and the locals who claimed to have seen or heard of the nest, consulting maps and what they knew of the creatures as they did so while Eskel, the best at alchemy of all of them, formulated several vials of Draconid Oil. With everything in place, they set out. Not far from where the suspected nest was, they took Swallow, Cat, Blizzard and Golden Oriole before leaving Roach and Scorpion plus Lambert’s horse with Jaskier and Ciri in supposed safety.</p>
<p>It was all going to plan until it wasn’t.</p>
<p>“For fuck’s sake, Jaskier! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get out of the way!”</p>
<p>“Geralt, they’re Royal Wyverns. Can you imagine the songs? What other bard could create such works? This could earn me a professorship at Oxenfurt!”</p>
<p>“It could get you dead.” Geralt snarled. “Nothing at Oxenfurt is worth that.”</p>
<p>“Well you’re hardly going to give me good enough details. You never do! How am I supposed to accurately depict your heroic deeds if you don’t give me the information?”</p>
<p>“Melitele’s tits!” Eskel cast a strong Aard at the wyvern heading for Jaskier, pushing it back a few feet, “I’ll give you all the details just get the fuck out of here.”</p>
<p>“Do you promise?”</p>
<p>“JASKIER!”</p>
<p>“Fine! But I am expecting details.” </p>
<p>With Jaskier out of harm’s way and hopefully heading back towards Ciri and the horses, things were a lot simpler. They used a combination of teasing and Aard to keep the wyverns as close to the ground as possible, not letting them gain height so that they could divebomb the group of Witchers. Knowing each other - trusting each other - as well as they did, they worked well together, even with Aiden thrown into the mix. Even so, it wasn’t easy. It was tiring and it was hard work but they succeeded eventually. They had the parts of the Wyverns they could use for potions and decoctions as well as what was needed to prove completion of contract. All they needed to do was collect Jaskier, Ciri and the horses.</p>
<p>Of course, they might have removed the threat and destroyed the nest, but that didn’t mean that the townsfolk would let them stay the night. Nothing but hostility greeted them in town and it was made more than clear that they were not welcome. One Witcher would have been bad enough, but four? That was unacceptable. It didn’t matter that the town was having a festival, the Witchers weren’t welcome. The Alderman had paid them the full contract fee and given them supplies but refused to let them stay the night. All of which accounted to them camping by the side of the road on Saovine.</p>
<p>It could have been worse.</p>
<p>They were all together and they were all uninjured. Mostly. Slight scratches but nothing worse than that. Nothing that a bit of Kiss couldn’t solve. Lambert and Aiden went off to hunt - find something to supplement the supplies they had been given in town – while Ciri and Jaskier found firewood and Eskel and Geralt took care of the horses and set up camp. With everyone having their respective jobs, it took no time at all before a fire was blazing, a handful of rabbits roasting on a spit and all of them sat around it. In many respects it was exactly the same as nearly every winter evening that they spent at Kaer Morhen. The only difference was, whereas in Kaer Morhen they were completely relaxed, here they were still slightly on edge, aware of every little sound.</p>
<p>Even so, Geralt relished the fact that Eskel was seated next to him. Their time together was too far and few between. It didn’t matter that they were used to it, that they had grown used to not seeing each other beyond their winters at Kaer Morhen, it never got any easier. It wasn’t as though they would get to grow old together in retirement either. Old Witchers were dead Witchers, after all. So, Geralt would relish any time that they would get together. One night with Eskel wrapped in his arms would tide Geralt over and through the next month or so once they had parted until they were reunited at Kaer Morhen.</p>
<p>He had just moved his hand to cover Eskel’s, hiding his reaction as Eskel tangled their fingers together, when Jaskier struck a chord on his lute and it was almost immediately swatted from his hands by Aiden.</p>
<p>“What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?”</p>
<p>Jaskier puffed up like a popinjay. “What the fuck are <em>you</em> playing at? That lute is a vital tool of my trade! It was given to me by Filavandrel himself.”</p>
<p>“Really? I hadn’t heard you the thousands of times you’ve said it before. And if you weren’t being an arse, then I wouldn’t have done it.”</p>
<p>“How am I being an arse?”</p>
<p>Privately, for once, Geralt agreed with his bard; he didn’t think that Jaskier was being an arse. Oh, he could be on occasion – many an occasion - but not now. Then again, Aiden did find a lot of amusement in baiting Jaskier and vice versa. Still, on this particular occasion, Geralt couldn’t quite parse whether Aiden was playing or being serious.</p>
<p>“It’s considered bad luck to play an instrument or enter a graveyard on Saovine. I would have thought you would have known that.”</p>
<p>Jaskier scoffed, “that’s horseshit. I’ve never heard that one before.”</p>
<p>“Just because you’ve never heard of it doesn’t make it horseshit.”</p>
<p>“Look, we used to burn a figure that represented Falka on a bonfire and I was told that banshees appear on Saovine night when I was a child in Lettenhove, but I definitely don’t remember anything about playing an instrument.”</p>
<p>Jaskier’s comment prompted a discussion of how Saovine was celebrated in different areas of the Continent. All of the Witchers had seen Saovine in all four corners of the Continent while Jaskier had also seen festivals of all kinds and qualities.</p>
<p>As was inevitable though, conversation descended into something else. It started as discussions of different ways of celebrating Saovine before moving into various contracts they had taken during the Festival. That wasn’t exactly unusual. Much of the conversation when they were wintering at Kaer Morhen took the form of discussing contracts and what they had done, what they could have done differently.</p>
<p>This was different though. It wasn’t the same as it was in the winter. It may have started like that, but it changed quickly. Transposed. Metamorphosised. Becoming more graphic until it was nothing but sharing horror stories that were intended to scare the others sat around the campfire.</p>
<p>As the stories continued, Geralt could feel the tension thrumming through Eskel building exponentially. He wanted to speak to Eskel, check on him, reassure him but didn’t want to draw attention to him if the others hadn’t noticed. Finally, Eskel had had enough and, as Aiden told a particularly gruesome story of a striga, he surged to his feet, shaking off Geralt’s hand, before storming off into the surrounding forest. His sudden movement shocked everyone into silence, and they all stared at Geralt, waiting for him to tell them what to do next. Instead, he said nothing and stood, moving into the darkness of the trees to find Eskel.</p>
<p>It took Geralt longer than he would have liked to find him. It may have only been seconds but Eskel had moved fast and was further into the trees than Geralt had expected. Far enough in that Geralt breathed a sigh of relief as he reached him, touching a tentative hand to Eskel’s jerkin. For a long moment, he wondered if Eskel would shrug him off and move further into the woods, but Eskel relaxed at the familiar touch.</p>
<p>“Eskel?”</p>
<p>At Geralt’s question, Eskel turned around, his anguish clearly written across his face. “All the things we’ve seen…”</p>
<p>Eskel didn’t finish his sentence but he didn’t have to. Geralt understood. He knew Eskel well enough that it was written on his face, in his eyes. All the things that they saw, all the monsters they dealt with … was that not enough? Did they really have to resort to telling tales like this? With no other aim but to try and scare each other? Eskel may have been the more sensitive one out of all of them but, truthfully, none of them were unaffected.</p>
<p>“They don’t mean anything by it. You know that. It’s bluster, nothing more.”</p>
<p>“That doesn’t make it okay.”</p>
<p>“No, but do you want to be the one to try and talk sense into Lambert? Or <em>Jaskier?”</em></p>
<p>Geralt took heart in the snort of laughter his question provoked, no matter how small. He wound his arms around Eskel’s waist, tugging him closer and nuzzling at Eskel’s neck, breathing in the scent of him. That distinctive smell of petrichor with a slight edge that magic users had that, on anyone else, would have Geralt on edge but, on Eskel, just smelt like home. Turning his head, he trailed kisses against Eskel’s jaw, his scarred cheek and ending on his lips before pulling back and just pressed their foreheads together, golden eyes locked on amber.</p>
<p>“Take heart in this, if nothing else. Everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve endured, we’re still here. Still alive. Still loving. Nothing will change that. <em>Despite</em> all we’ve seen.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>